An updated list of 7 great bike-trail overnights within easy reach of New Jersey

I started this list with 5 favorite DIY bike overnights using trails or mostly trails and (important for me) easily reached from New Jersey. Now it’s 2025, and my list has grown to 7.

More trails are coming, so biking within a day’s drive of New Jersey will only get better.

If you’re willing to do a really long day’s drive, I’d add the wonderful Ohio to Erie Trail. 326 miles crossing the state from Cincinnati (the Ohio River) through Columbus to Cleveland and Lake Erie. That trip report starts here.

We are generally credit-card tourists, travelling light and staying in hotels rather than camping. But I’ve included some camping information if that’s more your thing.

I hope they inspire you to find your own adventure on the trails, especially if you’re not ready for a road adventure or you know someone who isn’t. This is not an exhaustive list, just my personal preferences.

In no particular order:

Schuylkill River Trail

This trail is practically gap-free between Philadelphia and Reading, Pa., so that gives you more than 60 miles each way. If you’re a newcomer to DIY bike touring, it’s a good way to start.

The first time I tried it, we opted to ride from suburban Conshohocken to Reading and then back the next day with little more than toothbrushes and a change of clothes. It’s 50 miles each way. More here.

I’ve since biked the trail from Center City Philadelphia to a Reading suburb (for the hotel), making it a metric century each way. You can read about it here.

Really, all you need to do is book where you’ll spend the night. You can get away with carrying very little.

This trail also works for shorter rides. Spend the night in Phoenixville, perhaps? Or use another Philly station as your starting point and plot your distance from there?

If you drive to your starting point, what to do with your car? There’s a SEPTA train station parking lot just off the trail in Conshohocken, but we went on a weekday so it was full. We talked a hotel clerk into letting us leave our car tucked out of the way there.

Delaware & Lehigh Heritage Trail

Two of us biked from home to New Hope, Pa., to reach the D&L trail, where our Garmin told us the next turn was in 35 miles. So you can’t get lost between there and Easton!

We spent the night in Bethlehem before heading home a different way; here’s the blog post about that adventure.

But you can keep going … first to Allentown, then you turn north and head to Jim Thorpe beyond.

All told the Delaware & Lehigh Trail is already 140 miles (with a small road gap) between Bristol (outside Philadelphia) to Mountain Top, just past White Haven. When completed it will reach Wilkes-Barre, for a total of 165 miles.

In other words, it’s already just about as long as the Great Allegheny Passage, and it deserves to be better known outside the area.

Of course you don’t have to bike the whole thing. There are many ways to turn it into an overnight trip.

We’ve ridden the D&L trail south of New Hope — past Washington Crossing, Yardley, all the way to where it ends in Bristol. The area around Jim Thorpe (explored here) is particularly popular.

If you’re biking on a Saturday, you might catch a polo match along the way.

Looking to camp? Here’s what you need to know.

Not everyone can or wants to bike from home like we did. We did it because we couldn’t figure out where we could leave a car overnight. Not allowed at a trailhead, not allowed at a park. One suggestion from the D&L is to approach a church about parking in exchange for a donation. Just be back before Sunday!

Finally, if you don’t want to haul everything on your bike, find a base for one-day rides, like we did just south of Jim Thorpe. Pinball machines in the house!

Whatever you do, check the D&L’s interactive map before you go. Flood damage can take longer than you’d like to repair, and sometimes there are other closures.

New York’s Empire State Trail

We biked from Albany to New York City soon after the Empire State Trail opened. So many new sections of trail! We took extra time for a meal at the Culinary Institute just north of Poughkeepsie. If you want history, take small detours to the homes of two presidents and a couple other national park sites.

Plan on about 200 miles.

Our tip: Take Amtrak from New York City to Albany. Or if the whole trip sounds too daunting, use Metro North to reach Poughkeepsie and head toward New York City from there. We biked for 4 1/2 days; the trip report starts here.

Of course you can also go from Albany to Buffalo by bike, following the Erie Canal. I’d just stay on Amtrak all day to reach Buffalo and then bike back. But whatever direction you choose, take some time to explore Buffalo, like we did. The report on biking eastward starts here.

Lake Champlain and Quebec’s Route Verte

Bring your passport for this one. For us, it was a five-day bike ride leaving from St. Albans, Vermont. It’s a mix of trail and quiet roads — simply awesome. And because Quebec is French-speaking, you feel at times that you’ve gotten the benefits of a trans-Atlantic trip without the pain of jet lag. Croissants, pastries, cheese .. all there. And we only experienced a little bit of the Route Verte. It would have been easy to make this several days longer. In hindsight, we should have.

I blogged about it here, here and here.

We were able to leave our car at the hotel for free while we biked. Border crossings on a bike pre-COVID were painless. I just wish it didn’t take at least six hours for us to drive to Canada.

Still, we did it again when we tackled the P’tit Train du Nord just north of Montreal over 3 days.

East Coast Greenway from Providence, Rhode Island, to New Haven, Connecticut

This part of the East Coast Greenway just keeps getting better and better. And both cities are reachable by Amtrak.

I admit I haven’t ridden it all in one stretch. The two of us have done loop rides along most of it, sometimes using a campsite as a base, sometimes picking a trailhead for the day and driving to a hotel at the end of the day. Regardless, this area has some five-star, increasingly connected trails: the Farmington Valley trails and then east of Hartford, the Charter Oak Greenway, Hop River and Air Line trails, the Washington Secondary Path.

Since we biked in eastern Connecticut, the Moosup Valley Trail has been completed, connecting at the state line to Rhode Island trails.

So many blog posts: Farmington trails here and here, the Hop River here, Air Line Trail here and Washington Secondary here.

The East Coast Greenway is a 3,000-mile route going through major cities from the Canadian border in Maine to Key West, Florida. More than a third is now on trails, and it’s always getting better. I’ve ridden most of it with a group, but we’ve also done a DIY ride along the route between Providence and Portland, Maine (more here and here).

Great Allegheny Passage

Of course you knew the Great Allegheny Passage would make this list! Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, essentially on one long rail trail. Four of us biked this just before I started blogging here, and I’d love to do it again. Maybe this year?

There’s no shortage of information about the GAP, including the official guidebook and website. Here’s what I can add:

A big question is always transportation. We drove to Pittsburgh and spent that night in Homestead (on the trail just beyond Pittsburgh) that let us leave the car in the parking lot. We biked to the Point in Pittsburgh and back that same day.

I know of someone who did a one-way van rental to the Pittsburgh airport, biked the GAP and the connecting C&O Canal towpath to Washington, D.C. (335 miles total), and took Amtrak home. I know of others who took Amtrak from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, biked to D.C. and took the train home.

You’ve got lots of options.

Whether you aim to bike 50 miles, 40 miles, 25 miles each day is up to you; there are lots of places to stay. We booked a shuttle in Cumberland to get back to the car.

If you camp along the route, just know that there is an active train line on the other side of the Youghiogheny River. Bring earplugs! We spent one night in a guest house in Dawson on that side of the river — and it was just three doors down from the tracks. I’ll just say no one slept well.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is near Ohiopyle, but it’s a steep climb from the trail. If that seems too much, get a ride. Just get a timed admission ticket before you go.

Remember that both the GAP and the C&O Canal follow water, so when it floods it can be bad. Check their websites and Facebook pages for the latest.

Virginia Capital Trail

This trail connects the state capital (Richmond) to the first English settlement (Jamestown). It’s just over 50 miles each way, with camping and other accommodations along the way. Or base yourself in Williamsburg, like we did, and do out-and-backs to cover the trail in two days.

Because Adventure Cycling’s TransAmerica bike route uses part of the Virginia Capital Trail (it starts/ends in Yorktown, just east of Williamsburg), you just might strike up a conversation with someone on an even bigger adventure.

The worst thing about this trail? Probably needing to use I-95 to get there. Or consider Amtrak to Richmond.

Looking for day trips instead? Here’s my list of 5 great central Jersey trails.